


robin hood, sleeping beauty, and other sundry tales

by oryx



Category: Cowboy Bebop
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 18:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/pseuds/oryx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the planet Earth continues to defy all laws of probability and reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	robin hood, sleeping beauty, and other sundry tales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vtn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/gifts).



> ended up more gen than shippy, i'm afraid...  
> you have my most sincere apologies ( ´Д｀)

In this universe, Faye has learned, there is but one constant and undeniable truth, one infallible tenet, one known certainty upon which the laws of chance hold no sway, and it is thus:

 

Spending time on Earth is always a fucking terrible idea.

 

She’s bumming around, drifting from shady street corners to dingy bars and back again, on the lookout for some two-bit punk whose bounty she wouldn’t normally bother with (except her ship’s busted through no fault of her own and she needs cash for the repair job and _technically_ speaking it’s not really her ship, she’s just borrowing it for a bit and will _most definitely_ return it posthaste). She downs her second rum and coke and finishes off her fifth cigarette of the day, but all the same she can feel that familiar irritation beginning to set in, the kind of irritation that only Earth in all its bountiful glory can bring. There’s an old man with a missing tooth leering at her across the bar, and the music piping through the old radio is riddled with static, and even outside the air has an undercurrent to it of something mildewed and rotting. Fitting for a planet that’s little more than a garbage dump.

 

She gets to her feet and pushes a couple coins across the counter. Her mark doesn’t seem to be hanging around any of his supposed “haunts” today. Maybe tomorrow, she thinks with a sigh. Maybe tomorrow she’ll finally nab this asshole and get off this god awful planet. (Why’d she even come here to begin with? A hunch? A whim? She can no longer remember.)

 

She’s heading back to the ship, taking a shortcut through a grimy alleyway when she hears it:

 

“Faye-Faye!”

 

She freezes mid-step. It can’t be, she thinks. There’s no fucking way. And yet there’s no one else in the galaxy who would dare to call her _that_. Slowly, almost warily, she glances up.

 

And sees a smiling face with a mop of red hair peering down at her from a nearby fire escape.

 

“Oh, you have _got_ to be shitting me,” she mutters, and Edward laughs.

 

.

 

.

 

It’s been a year and half since she last saw this weird-ass kid, but somehow Ed is still exactly the same.

 

“How old are you, anyway?” she asks, as she’s led by the hand through the twisting streets. Ed’s palm is soft and warm against her own. “Don’t you have puberty to go through or something? You can’t possibly look like a ten-year-old boy forever.”

 

“What are you talking about, Faye-Faye?” Ed says in a singsong voice. “Edward will never change! Edward will always just be Edward!”

 

“… Right,” Faye sighs. “How silly of me.”

 

“We have arrived,” Ed announces solemnly a few minutes later, gesturing towards the derelict building in front of them. “This… is my castle.”

 

Faye’s seen crack houses more welcoming. The paint is peeling off the siding, and most of the windows are boarded up, and the roof appears to have a gaping hole in it. Some obscene graffiti is spray-painted across the front stoop. Faye groans but allows herself to be dragged through the door all the same, ducking to avoid the multitude of cobwebs in the entranceway. Inside the place is thick with dust and smells faintly of mothballs. The floorboards creak beneath their footsteps, and she tries not to think about the rather ominous stains on the wallpaper.

 

“Hey, weren’t we on the other side of the planet last I saw you?” she asks, frowning. “How the hell did you get all the way over here?”

 

“Oh, Ed hitched a ride on a boat,” the girl says, grinning broadly. “Ed noticed she was being followed by some spooooky characters and had to ‘get out of dodge’ ASAP!”

 

Faye stares at her for a long moment, eyes narrowing.

 

“Why were you being tailed?” she asks quietly. “Were they after the dog? Or…?”

 

“No no Faye-Faye, they were after Ed of course!” The girl laughs. “Ed may have _possibly_ _kindasorta_ stolen a super secret computer program from a super scary man. But he stole it from Ed first, so technically it wasn’t stealing at all! Just taking back!”

 

Faye drags a tired hand across her face. “You know what,” she says. “Forget I even asked. Please, for the love of god, just tell me you don’t have a bounty on you.”

 

“Not yet, but maaaybe soon,” Ed hums, opening a door that seems to lead down into the house’s basement. An excited bark can be heard, and a ball of tan and white fur hurtles up the stairs, skidding to a halt at Faye’s feet. Ein looks up at her with those big eyes and tilts his head to the side and fucking hell, since when did he get so sickeningly _cute_?

 

“Ein wanted to see you,” Ed says, reaching down to scritch him behind the ears. “That’s why I brought you here, Faye-Faye!”

 

“The _dog_ wanted to see me,” she echoes. “Right. Of course.”

 

(Is it pathetic, she wonders, to feel a little bit happy?)

 

Stepping into the basement of the house is like stepping into a different world. Whereas the upstairs floors look like something out of a shitty old horror film, the lowest floor is decidedly lived-in, a cluttered mess of neon-bright computer screens and crisscrossed electrical wires, bits and pieces of strange devices strewn haphazard across the floor. A mattress covered in a tangle of blankets is shoved up against the wall.

 

“You’ve seriously been living here?” Faye muses aloud, careful where she puts her feet.

 

“Yessiree! No one will ever think to look for Ed in her Secret-est of Secret Bases!”

 

Faye leans closer to one of the computers, staring at the numbers on the screen, which seem to be increasing by a steady increment every few seconds.

 

“Oi,” she calls. “What’s this?”

 

The girl’s head pops out from behind one of the massive servers in the corner. “That’s Edward’s special investment fund,” she says, like it should be obvious. “I’ve been steadily siphoning woolongs from the offshore accounts of a corrupt corporation on Venus for the past seven months, yes indeed I have~”

 

Faye blinks; feels her knees go weak. She promptly sits down on the floor, gaping open-mouthed at the computer screen, where the numbers just keep on ticking higher and higher. 4,603,552. 4,603,556.

 

“Holy hell,” she whispers. “You’re fucking insane, kid.”

 

But once again, Ed merely laughs.

 

.

 

.

 

She wakes in the morning (there’s no light in the basement, but the computer screen nearest to her reads 10:37 AM) to find Ed snuggled up way too close for comfort, using her thigh as a pillow. She’s drooling a bit, and Faye grimaces, shoving her off unceremoniously.

 

“Hey kid, I’m heading out,” she says, stifling a yawn. She reaches over and pokes Ed’s cheek. “Got a bounty head to look for.”

 

Ed’s eyes snap open. “A bounty!?” she exclaims, sitting bolt upright. “Pray tell, fair lady, what is their name?”

 

“Uh… Michael Gutierrez, I think? Part of some small-time drug smuggling ring. He’s worth chump change, but I need the cash, y’know?” She fumbles around for a cigarette and balances it between her lips; flicks open her lighter and watches the flame stutter to life. Mutters: “Or else I might be stuck on this fucking trash heap for all eternity.”

 

Ed twirls over to her keyboard and begins tapping away, “hmm”ing and stroking her chin as she searches.

 

“Michael Gutierrez,” she reads. “Has two known aliases – Johnathan Lagrange and Salvador Romero – one of which was used to check into a motel five blocks away from here yesterday night.”

 

Faye’s cigarette almost falls from her lips. She scrambles across the room to peer over Ed’s shoulder. Sure enough, it’s guy she’s looking for, unmistakable thanks to that unfortunate neck tattoo.

 

“Oh, come the fuck _on_ ,” she growls, irritation hitting her like a slap in the face. “He wasn’t even in town these past few days? I’ve been ‘lying in wait’ at shitty dive bars for nothing?? Some of the worst alcohol I’ve ever had, I swear to god…”

 

Still grumbling to herself, she fumbles around for her gun, stowing it in the waistband of her pants.

 

“Faye-Faye’s gonna go catch the big bad smuggler?” Ed crows. “Edward wants to come along!”

 

Faye can feel a headache coming on. “I’d say ‘hell no’ but you’re probably just going to follow me anyway, aren’t you?”

 

Ed nods enthusiastically, and Faye sighs.

 

“Why am I getting a sense of déjà vu?” she mutters, and takes the stairs two at a time with Ed (and the dog) hot on her heels.

 

.

 

.

 

It goes well enough, until she gets to the guy’s hotel room and finds the door suspiciously ajar. That’s a bad sign if she’s ever seen one. She motions for Ed to stay back and lifts her gun, finger poised on the trigger, trying to peer through the crack in the door to no avail. There are faint noises coming from inside. Someone, at least, is still in there.

 

She counts to three and kicks the door in, leveling her gun at the back of the man’s head. He turns sharply, one hand reaching for his weapon, and –

 

“… Faye?”

 

Jet stares at her, shock written on his face. She stares back at him.

 

Slowly, she lowers her gun.

 

“Oh my god,” she says, after a long moment of stunned silence. “Is this some kind of conspiracy?”

 

.

 

.

 

They make their way to a rundown diner across from the motel. Jet orders a coffee, Faye’s sticking to her cigs, thank you very much, who knows if they even bother washing the dishes in this place, and Ed orders some kind of disgusting-looking breakfast extravaganza, slipping bites to Ein under the table. (The sign out front says “No Dogs Allowed,” so she had to smuggle him in under her shirt.)

 

Jet takes a sip of his coffee and launches into an explanation. Apparently good old Michael Gutierrez had another, little-known alias, from a time before the neck tattoo and steroid abuse, making it nigh impossible to connect the names together. Under that alias he’d racked up some charges of grand larceny and assault with a deadly weapon, and when combined with his current, lesser bounty, the total evened out to some several million woolongs. Unfortunately Gutierrez had literally thrown himself out the window when Jet had busted down his hotel door, scaling the outside of the building “like a fucking lizard or something, I swear to god” and parkour’d his way across the nearby rooftops before vanishing from sight.

 

“There’s a limit, y’know?” Jet says with a sigh. “Even for five million woolongs, I don’t think I have it in me to chase down a guy like that.”

 

“What, this gig starting to tire you out, old man?” Faye says, a teasing smile curving her lips.

 

Jet glowers at her over the rim of his mug. “Oh please,” he mutters. “It’s just different on my own, is all.”

 

Unwittingly, Faye’s eyes flick to the empty fourth seat at the table. Her fingers curl into a fist, nails digging sharply into the palm of her hand, and she reaches over to stub out her cigarette, a strange feeling of frustration prickling at her skin.

 

“I dunno, J-man,” Ed says, grinning around a mouth stuffed full of bacon. “You _are_ getting up there! Maybe it’s time to take things slow, yeah? Retire and lead a nice, quiet life raising cactuses in Tijuana?”

 

“… ‘J-man’?” Jet raises an eyebrow. “That’s a new one. Do I even want to know what _you’ve_ been doing this past year?”

 

“Being Robin Hood, of course!” the girl exclaims, setting to work on her pancakes. “Robin Ed, maybe? Edward Hood? Either one works. Faye-Faye and J-man, you can be my band of Merry Men, alright? Ein is already Little John, though, so neither of you can be him.”

 

“Make sense when you talk, dumbass,” Faye says, rolling her eyes. She sits there quietly for a moment as realization sets in, then leans forward, cradling her head in her hands. “Great. Just wonderful. My bounty’s probably gone for good. I’ve got no money, my ship’s a total wreck… Earth can go seriously go fuck itself.”

 

“Yeah,” Jet muses. “You hate this planet, don’t you? Why are you here, exactly?”

 

“Hell if I know,” Faye mutters. “Must’ve been drunk and set a course on accident or something.”

 

“Or maaaaybe,” Ed says, waggling her fingers obnoxiously, “it was the workings of _destiny_!”

 

“Of course,” Faye sighs. “Destiny.”

 

(But perhaps Ed’s right, says a voice in the back of her mind, because all of _this_ is far too ridiculous to be a mere coincidence.)

 

.

 

.

 

Ed has already gone back to her Secret-est of Secret Bases, departing with a wave, rambling on about “updating her server mainframe” and “streamlining her central hard drive.” Jet and Faye stand around outside the diner, looking at anything but each other, an awkward silence stretching between them.

 

“The uh, the Bebop is docked down by the harbor,” Jet says finally. He clears his throat. “If you want to drop by for drinks later or… Or something.”

 

“Or something?” Faye repeats, trying not to laugh. “Yeah, alright. I might take you up on that.”

 

“… Listen, Faye,” Jet begins, but shakes his head a moment later, giving up on whatever trite bullshit he was about to spout. Instead, he closes the distance between them and wraps his arms around her. Faye blinks. He smells like engine oil and something heady and familiar that she can’t quite place. The metal of his left hand is cool against the small of her back, but the rest of him is comfortingly warm and solid, and without meaning to she finds herself leaning into him. It’s been a long, long time since anyone hugged her.

 

But then he doesn’t seem to want to let go.

 

“Jet,” she murmurs, and he snaps back to reality, backing away with a faint flush high in his cheeks. He coughs into his hand, trying to cover up his embarrassment.

 

“Sorry,” he says gruffly. “It’s just, I uh… I haven’t seen you in a while. And I’ve been worried all this time, y’know? You looked pretty out of it back then. When you left, I mean. I kept wondering if you were off getting in trouble somewhere, or – ”

 

He breaks off, a dour set to his features, clearly unsettled by the direction his train of thought is headed.

 

“ _Anyways_ ,” he says. “Like I said… the Bebop. Feel free to swing by, if you want. Doesn’t have to be tonight. Tomorrow is good too. Or the day after that.” He pauses, hesitation flickering across his face. “It’s just been way too quiet since we all went our separate ways. Could use a little more noise ‘round the ship.”

 

 _I’ve been lonely,_ is what he doesn’t say, but the words hang in the air anyhow. She breathes them in like smoke, feeling them settle heavy on her tongue.

 

“Yeah,” she says softly. “Things have been pretty quiet around here, too.”

 

.

 

.

 

It’s past midnight and she’s feeling restless. Even gambling away her last thousand woolongs isn’t enough to settle her nerves, and so she starts to walk, aimlessly and without a destination in mind. When she realizes she’s nearing the harbor she groans, exasperated with her own subconscious, but doesn’t bother turning around. It’s just a drink, after all. It’s not like she’s making any kind of commitment.

 

She stares up at the Bebop and runs her fingers over its hull. It’s even worse for the wear than she remembers it being, chipped paint hiding beneath a fine layer of rust.

 

“What a shitty excuse for a ship,” she whispers, but can’t deny the fondness in her voice.

 

Inside there is that familiar mechanical hum that sinks into her veins and thrums there like a pulse. And below that a quiet _snip, snip_ that she remembers all too well.

 

“Welcome back,” Jet says, like it’s been hours instead of a year and a half since she last set foot on this ship.

 

“You should really lock this thing up, you know,” Faye says, leaning in the doorway and watching Jet’s fingers as he trims a bonsai with yellow-green leaves. “Anybody could just waltz in without you noticing.”

 

“Mmhmm.” He frowns in concentration, clippers poised and trembling, ready to take out a delicate-looking branch. Faye’s no expert at the art of tiny tree trimming, but even she can see something _off_ with the bonsai in the room. They’re all cut back too short, little more than skeletal twigs with the barest hint of colour.

 

“Maybe it’s time to take a break from that supposedly-relaxing hobby of yours,” Faye says, rolling her eyes. “You promised me a drink, didn’t you?”

 

Jet pauses; nods thoughtfully and sets down the clippers. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, you’re right. There’s some beers in the fridge.”

 

“… What, that’s it? You know a lady is coming to visit and you can’t even be assed to buy a bottle of vodka? Not even some wine? Frankly, I’m offended.”

 

“Oh, so you’re a ‘lady’ now?”

 

Faye scowls at him, holding his gaze for a long moment.

 

“Touché,” she says, and heads to the kitchen to grab a drink.

 

.

 

.

 

“I wonder,” she says, halfway through her third beer. “I wonder if I slept all those years for a reason.”

 

Jet looks at her incredulously. “Have you already had too many, Faye? Is two and a half beers your limit now? Do I need to revoke your alcohol privileges?”

 

“Oh shut up,” she mutters. “I’m serious here, okay? What if I was… I dunno, born into the wrong era or something? And everything that happened was just so I could be here, in this time, and meet all of you?”

 

Jet smiles into his drink. “So you’re like Sleeping Beauty?” he says. “Man, I never took you for such a romantic.”

 

“Sleeping Beauty?” she echoes. She laughs, then, at the ridiculousness of it. “Yeah, I like the sound of that. Wasn’t Sleeping Beauty woken by ‘true love’s kiss’ or some other bullshit, though? I don’t remember anything like that happening to me.”

 

“Maybe you just weren’t paying close enough attention,” Jet laughs, his eyes crinkling around the edges, and when their knees bump against each other neither one of them moves away.

 

.

 

.

 

In the morning Faye wakes to find Ein curled up at her feet, Ed drooling once more on her leg, and a blanket that smells faintly of engine oil thrown across her shoulders.

 

The Bebop is quiet save for someone humming off-key in the kitchen. It’s a song that she knows. She knows it from Before. Her grandmother used to sing it to her when she was a child. Strange, she thinks, the way music lasts so long - far longer than the people who sing it.

 

Faye sits there for a time, listening. And then she pulls the blanket a little tighter around herself and closes her eyes, breathing in and out in time with the ship’s soft, mechanical whir.

 


End file.
